So, if you have an idea for a food item or a drink, and you want to see it in the game, here's your chance. Follow the instructions below; even if you are not a builder, they should be detailed enough to guide you through (and they might even make you realise that building is not that complex after all, and that you might try your hand at it!).
1. Think of what you want to create. You might want to check that it's not already in the game (if you can't cast "locate object", ask a wizard or a priest to do it for you, they will certainly be glad to help). Check the posts below too to make sure that nobody else sent in the same object. Determine whether this item you want to create is a FOOD item or a DRINK (that should be easy enough!).
2. Write the short description. Watch out, the name is misleading! The "short description" is not the description of the object ... it's just what you would call its name (but, unfortunately, "name" designs something else, so I'll avoid using this term). The "short description" of the object is what you would use to complete a sentence like "You see ...", "You pick up ...", "You drop ...", and so on. The short description must start with a lower letter (no caps, unless it's a name that always starts with a capital letter). The short description of your item should be at most 20-30 character long.Example wrote:I plan to create a banana. It's obviously a FOOD item.
3. Write the long description. Once again, this is not the "description". It's longer than the short description though ... The long description is what you see when you enter a room and the item is on the ground. It's a complete sentence, starting with a capital letter and ending with a full stop/dot. Try to come up with a sentence that works well in most rooms. The long description should be some 65-70 character long at most.Example wrote:Example. "I see a banana", "I pick up a banana", ... So, the short description of my item is: "a banana".
4. List the keywords. The keywords are the words that people can use to interact with your object; that is, they can type "take <keyword>", or "eat <keyword>". Make sure you take both your short description and your long description into consideration when you list the keywords ! There can be as many keywords as you want.Example wrote:Example. I can use any of the following for my long description:
"A banana is here on the ground."
"A banana was left here."
"There is a banana on the ground here."
"You see a banana on the ground here."
"A long yellow fruit lies on the ground."
A long description like "A banana is half-buried in the mud here." does not work well though ... because not all rooms are muddy (not all rooms have a "ground" either, but most of them do).
5. Does your item need a description? If so, then write it. Now, we've come to the "real" description, i.e., what people see when they examine your item. If your item is a common item (like a banana), there is no need to write a description to explain that it is a long, yellow, slightly curved fruit with a thick skin. The description is optional. If you write one, you need to format it in lines that are no longer than 75 characters each.Example wrote:My banana will need "banana" as a keyword, obviously. If I choose to use the "A long yellow fruit lies on the ground." long description, I will most likely need to add "long", "yellow", and "fruit" to the possible keywords because people might not understand that this is actually a banana when they enter the room and they see the long description. That's why it's important to check both the short and the long descriptions when listing the keywords.
6. Colourise your three descriptions (not the keywords). You can add colour codes of the form {X0}, where X is a number or A, B, C, D, E, or F. Those colour codes work as described in "help feralcolour". Each of the three descriptions should start with such a colour code. Don't overdo colours; generally, one colour code will be enough, sometimes two, but generally not more than that.Example wrote:The banana does not really require a description, but for the sake of the example, I'm going to use the following one.
"This is a long yellow fruit. It is slightly curved and has a thick yellow
skin that can easily be peeled off."
(Note how I broke the line manually before it reached 75-80 characters.)
Easy enough, right?Example wrote:The obvious choice for my item is yellow, that is {B0}. Adding this code yields the following results:
KEYWORDS: banana long fruit yellow
SHORT DESC: {B0}a banana
LONG DESC: {B0}A long yellow fruit lies on the ground here.
DESCRIPTION:
{B0}This is a long yellow fruit. It is slightly curved and has a thick yellow
skin that can easily be peeled off.
The rest of the instructions depend on whether you are creating a FOOD item or a DRINK item. For a FOOD item, go to the next post. For a DRINK item, go to the third post in this thead.
